....November 25, 6:22 PM
 
 
   
The Devil And The Next Council Speaker

Citizen Union’s announcement of its forum to promote good government.
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

My Holiday season ended last week.

The joy is already gone.

I am sad.

Sure, I’ll get over it.

And I’m not surprised by the circumstances that stole the joy from the joyous season.

Allow me to explain.

I have a lot of friends in the City Council – I have come to know many during their past four years in office. All of them have been in office for exactly four years – they got there because their predecessors were term-limited by referendum of the people.

Most of the Councilmembers I know are good people.

Some have been friends much longer than the four years they’ve served in the Council. A number of my friends are actively engaged in seeking the position of Speaker of the Council – considered by most to be the second most powerful post in NYC government.

Lew Fidler of Brooklyn has been my friend and attorney for more than two decades. He’s counseled me, handled major business closings for me, traded rotisserie baseball players with me, and started coming to Trib holiday parties long before running for public office. But above all, Lew has been my friend for some 20 years. Lew knows how the system works. He is funny and he is quick. Lew is as bright as any Council member I know – and he is a sincere compassionate human being. Lew is special. And I think that’s the case even when I try to be objective and forget the past 20 years.

Melinda Katz is wonderful. I enjoy her. I enjoy our lunches. I enjoy our friendship. I probably know her for close to 15 years – she looks like she had to be 15 when I first met her before she entered the Assembly more than a decade ago. She also is very bright and shines with thoughtful analysis and institutional knowledge. She understands government as well as anyone her age. Melinda is special.

I met Leroy Comrie through his delightful wife Marcia.
Marcia launched the PRESS of Southeast Queens with me more than five years ago. Since then, I have become almost a part of the family. Their wonderful kids visit me upon occasion – not often enough. Leroy and Marcia attended my daughter Allison’s Bat Mitzvah some three years ago and Marcia and I constantly keep in touch politically, professionally and personally. Leroy and I get to chat occasionally. He is steeped in Council history and knowledge. He represents a community – a minority – that for all too long did not get its fair share of New York. Leroy is not as dynamic as the other candidates. He reacts instead with thoughtful and compassionate wisdom. He differs from many of his colleagues. He reacts slowly; he thinks deeply. He cares.

I’ve known David Weprin’s family as long as I’ve known any of his colleagues. His dad was Speaker of the Assembly, his brother, Assemblyman Mark, has been a friend for many years. I’ve come to know David. He is intelligent, dedicated, knowledgeable and working hard towards his goal.

They are all good people. I enjoy some more than others – but all make valuable contributions to our community.

All four want to be Speaker. So do Bill DiBlasio of Brooklyn, Christine Quinn of Manhattan and Joel Rivera of the Bronx.

The seven Speaker candidates met last week at a Citizen Union Foundation forum held at Baruch College. And it is the message of that forum that has stolen the joy from my holiday season.

In one form or another, it appears the group has agreed to overturn term limits passed by the people without allowing the people the final word. Sure they speak of Town Hall meetings for input – but they intend to do it by vote of the Council and not by a referendum of the people.

The message seems clear that the Council members – led by this group of seven Speaker candidates have decided one way or another to extend their eight-year limited terms in office no matter what the people have said or will say.

Although Weprin hedged more than DiBlasio, the message was delivered. To become the next Speaker, all seven will be willing to ignore the will of the people.

It’s not just the seven of them. It’s my other friends – even the most moral-sounding of them.

It reminds me a lot of the show “Damn Yankees” and selling one’s soul to the devil in order to achieve success – power. Only “Damn Yankees” was make believe and Joe Hardy had an escape clause.

In real life, when lured by the devil, there is no escape clause.

And from what happened at the Citizens Union Forum, for New York City there may be no escape clause, nor Santa Claus either.

Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.

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The Race For Mayor: This Year & 2009

Henry Stern
By HENRY STERN

A little more than two weeks ago Mayor Bloomberg was re-elected by a 3-2 margin, remarkable in a city with predominantly Democratic enrollment. There do not yet appear to be portents of great change in the Bloomberg Second Term.

“The leopard does not change his spots,” and it would be unlikely for the mayor, now a young 63, to change his style or attitude, especially since the polls say that the public now approves of him in record numbers. In about two years he went from 32 to 75 percent approval which indicates either that the public is forgiving, that it pays to advertise, or that when confronted with a human alternative, New Yorkers preferred the Mayor they knew to the distinctly unstylish and untested challenger.

Apart from lack of money, the Diallo blunder, and the usual rivalries, the Ferrer campaign did relatively poorly because it was based on three themes which had limited appeal: 1) I am a Latino, and it’s our time. 2) I am a Democrat and we are the party of the people, the poor and a lot of the middle class. 3) Bloomberg is spending enormously on his campaign, and your sense of fairness should compel you to vote for me, the underdog.

The problem with a campaign of lamentations is that the public looked at the election as if they were hiring a man for a job, a CEO for a $50 billion a year enterprise.
Which of the two men, in the normal course of events, would you think of as more likely to manage your property competently and honestly, protect your home and your personal safety, and be mindful of your taxes?

The surprise of the 2005 primary was the separate collapses of two campaigns originally regarded as promising: Speaker Gifford Miller’s and Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields’. Miller started as the insiders’ choice, with the most endorsements, the most money, the most valuable experience in city government.
He foundered on an ethical issue, sending out a massive $1.5 million mailing at public expense.

Ms. Fields crumbled over the vacuity of her campaign, her principal distinction being that she grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, when the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was active there. She was unfairly tormented by the press over a minimal issue - in a piece of campaign literature intended to show the diversity of her support, the faces of Asians had been pasted over the faces of non-Asians.

The competition was highlighted by the meteoric rise, followed by the apparent self-immolation, of the brash but bright Congressmember who has followed his constituents from Brooklyn to Queens, Anthony Weiner. He was the quickest in debate, evoking images of Koch in the 1970s, before moderate Democrats became an endangered species.

Weiner carried Miller’s home district on the east side, and appeared to be the candidate who best captured the New York spirit, part cab-driver, part policy wonk, part cheerleader. In the primary, he polled an astonishing 29 percent of the vote, since he started as unknown. In fact, he almost denied Ferrer the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff, but Weiner did not want to be viewed as a spoiler, dividing the Democratic vote. Although it seems to us that the voters make the decision as to whether they divide their vote. One reason the taxpayers pay for these campaigns, is that they have the right to choose.

Weiner explained that he didn’t want the 2005 primary to resemble the battle of the hanging chads, with every vote contested, and with bitterness developing so that either winner would end up the loser. He will now have four years to show New York Democrats why he would be a better mayor than City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., who is the obvious establishment choice. And don’t forget Adolfo Carrion, the articulate Bronx Borough President, who will be term limited out of his job, or Marty Markowitz, energetic tub-thumper for Brooklyn.

The effort will be made by party leaders to sink Weiner before the competition sharpens. Weiner’s critics will say: who needs another Schumer? But when he was re-elected in 2004, Schumer won a record 71 percent of New York State. Will Weiner resist the enticements of the Washington Beltway, or yield to them as Schumer did when he decided to assume a more important role in the Senate rather than contest Eliot Spitzer for the 2006 Democratic nomination for Governor?

What’s past is prologue. In both politics and sports, people say: “Wait ‘til next year.” We look forward to what 2006 will bring us, and invite your comments on the efforts of those who would turn the wheel to their advantage.

Starquest@NYCivic.org

Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato
Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.